A/N: Here is the next chapter, IMPROTANT author's notes to follow in next chapter!
Chapter 30
Re-compliance or Ministry Law Re-execution
They appeared a moment later, before gates of Hogwarts. Severus smiled down at Hermione who still clung to him even after it was clear that they were safely at their destination. They had stayed at the Weasley's for quite some time, as the sun was beginning to set and the stars were just beginning to shine through the quickly fading summers evening. It was pleasantly warm and none of the torches had been lit yet inside the castle that stood like a dark sentry in the gathering gloom. It was home.
"Come." Severus smiled down at Hermione, drawing himself out of her arms and towards the gates to let them in. She followed him with her own smile and let him guide her through the gates and reset the school wards. Then he took her hand and pulled her away from the path that lead up to the main doorway to the school.
"What is this?" Hermione asked as he led her towards the lake to a secluded area.
"This is something we have not done in a while." He smiled as he pulled her to himself near the edge of the forest, not far from the lake. "It is secluded here and we definitely won't be disturbed." He reached in for a kiss while running his hands along her sides, earning a groan from her.
"You continue to surprise me Severus." She panted when they pulled away to catch their breaths.
"I should hope so." He growled playfully as he nipped along her neck. He also managed to loosen a few of the buttons on her shirt to reveal part of her chest. They continued to kiss for a few minutes until Hermione halted it as she swatted at a nasty little bug intent upon making her its nightly meal.
"We have to do something about the bugs." She panted. "I refuse to become one big bug bite."
"I agree, I never planned on the bugs, but they have their purpose. Come with me." He told her leading her by the hand, shirt partially open towards a small stand of pine trees nearer the lake. Taking her on what appeared to be a small path between the trees he stopped before a certain tree.
"Where are we? This seems familiar." She said.
"It should." He smirked. "It would seem that you are losing your touch Mrs. Snape." He then let go of her hand and took out his wand. After a few practiced flicks, the boughs of the tree pulled away to reveal an archway within the trunk.
"Now I know where we are." Hermione said. "But I thought you needed the house elves to open it for you."
"Unusually I have to, but since I am still in one piece, I can open it without problem. Come, you know where it leads, let us finish this where it began." He held out his hand to her and she took it, letting herself be drawn into the darkness beyond. With a flick of his wand the boughs closed behind them and Severus drew Hermione closer to him in the dark and on towards their chambers.
"I am quite glad you are in one piece." Hermione quipped. "It would be most inconvenient if you were in more than one piece." She could not hold back the childish giggle that erupted from her.
"You had better hope you come out in one piece after tonight wife." Severus growled as he pulled her along the dark hallway beneath the ground towards their chambers. They both nearly ran in the dark, both confident and sure of their path. Severus having taken this path many times and Hermione trusting in him and her knowledge of the hallway to guide her.
Once they had reached the end of the hallway, Severus drew her close for a breathless kiss before he opened the door into their chambers. The fire in the hearth had burned low, or had never been building up and the room was barely lit. They both nearly fell panting onto the hearth rug as the bookshelf swung closed behind them.
"As delightful as this is," Severus said while lying nearly atop Hermione. "I would suggest we adjourn to the bed. It is much more of a comfort on my bones." Though even as he said this he was setting about exploring her neck and collar bones with his mouth. After a few minutes they both finally made it to the bedroom, locking and warding the door very strongly. Only an explosion of great force was going to make any sort of dent in the wards that night and only if the world were suddenly coming to an end would the messenger of news that cracked the wards would escape death from either occupant of the room.
Once they had made it into their bedroom did Severus and Hermione seem to regain any semblance of thought again. There had been a terse remark made that had illuminated the room with candles, but that was not what Severus intended to light the room for the whole evening. With a few flicks of his wrist and wand Severus soon had a delightful blaze going within the hearth. He also managed to make sure that the curtains were closed so that there would be no rude awakenings in the morning. Then with a growl of intent he extinguished the candles and rounded on Hermione who had been leaning against one of the post of the bed. She had managed to kick off her shoes. Severus was enraptured anew with the disheveled look of her hair and opened shirt as she stood barefooted on the carpet.
"You are a vision." He growled. "But no more will you torment me for I intend to have you for myself." He caught her up beside him and kissed her in an unhurried way, kicking off his shoes.
"You already have me as your own husband." She sighed. "But I hope you still think I am a vision when you see all of me again. I am changed since the twins. I am not unblemished as before."
"Never fear." He cooed, yes cooed. He had managed to find that tone in his repertoire since he had first began to sooth a crying child. "Whatever changes have occurred are not something that will repulse me. They are signs of the wondrous gift you have given me. I never once thought of children of my own until I admitted to myself that I was in love with you. Once I married you it was something I actually looked forward to and still do. Whatever changes have occurred are nothing that will repulse me. Besides, I am not unblemished either and still you love me, who am I to begrudge you the marks of becoming a mother when you have accepted so much more upon me." He kissed down her neck and continued his assault on her shirt.
"You really were never good at the sweet nothings part of the deal." Hermione couldn't help but laugh. "You always have something so unromantically romantic to say in situations like these." She had managed to pull his shirt from his trousers and was set to running her hands over his torso beneath his still buttoned shirt.
"And yet my very unromantic declarations seem not to phase you my dear." He managed to chuckle.
"Well, one must take into account the nature of the man speaking such things. He would never think to do something so frivolous as sweet sappy lovey declarations of love. He is much more apt to giving an appropriate growl of approval and tracing every inch of skin with skilled hands." She said.
"Why exactly my dear, are you referring to me in a third person sort of reference?" He could not help but ask, pulling away to look at the lovely sight of Hermione in a completely unbuttoned shirt and a slightly reddened collar bone where he had been focusing most of his more recent attentions. He could not hold back the smirk as she had to pause and think of a good enough answer.
"It seemed right at the time?" She offered up with a shrug. "But enough talk. You are far too over dressed, as usual my dear." She said reaching up to the first button on his coat. With a melodious command she ran her hand down the front of his coat and the buttons undid themselves, similar to unzipping a zipper, as Hermione used a wandless spell that Severus had taught her. She had learned that she could also do wandless magic now that she was a Phoenix Keeper and had been carefully practicing different spells that would make her life easier and teaching more interesting as the last couple years had been progressing. She had quickly learned the spell that Severus had used every night when he changed out of his many buttoned robes. Now she used it to her own advantage so that she could get to him faster and with less work, which she felt was a most positive thing.
"It would seem you don't want to answer any of my questions with a straight answer tonight wife." He smirked as he removed the remainder of her shirt and began to tangle with the belt of her jeans, once Hermione had pushed his own shirt and coat off his shoulders. "Your seem to be trying to use distraction as a tactic for your own ends, but it won't work." He chuckled, carefully weighting the heft of her swollen nursing breasts in his hands. "I will get to the prize tonight, no matter the distractions, though the scenery I must say is most excellent.
"Men and their scenery." Hermione laughed as she rediscovered the contours of his chest with her hands, making her way down to his belt in turn. "At least you are sure to say how very much you enjoy what you see. It is a definite encouragement."
"Well of course. I can't let anyone think that I don't appreciate you or your body." He leaned in and with a flick of his hand had managed to banish her jeans off her body leaving her to stand in nothing more than her bra and underwear. Reaching out he ran loving fingers over the stretch marks that stood out a dark pink over the length of her torso. Kneeling down he kissed the length of one down her side and looked up at her from the floor.
"I can create a salve for you if you want." He told her. "I can make these marks disappear if that is what you wish." He told her in all seriousness. "You do not have to carry these marks if you don't want to, although I can say that they are not something that repulses me, I merely would like to know if they hurt you."
"No, they do not hurt me." She told him. "They are simply what is left after carrying any child, our children. I will carry these marks with honor. They won't always be this dark, and in fact they are lighter than before, they will go away with time. Besides I will likely have many more after bearing four more children, hopefully no more twins. I don't think I can handle that again."
"I don't think I could either." He agreed with a smirk. "One set is plenty to deal with at a time I must say! They are handful enough now; I just wonder what will happen when they get older."
"Well there will be school and boyfriends and alike."
"Speak not Madame of my daughters dating. There is and will not be any boy good enough to date my daughters. They will all be dunderheads just as the current generation is."
"And so speaks the paranoia of the dungeons." She sighed in an over dramatic way reaching down to take his hand and give him a tug back up to stand before her. Running her hands down his chest before her she quickly did another wandless spell that removed him down to also nothing but his boxers to stand beside her in the warm fire glow.
"I remember the first time we were in here." He said kissing her passionately and snaking his hand around to expertly unclip her bra and have it fall away. "I was rather nervous I must admit. I still worried that you would turn away from me. But now as we once again resume this lovely activity I can say that after that first night you changed my thoughts and outlook on what relationships I could have. About the relationships that I would be able to participate and contribute to; I must say that you are the only one who ever made an attempt to befriend or understand me in recent years. Dumbledore understood some things and different facets of my personality that he used to his greatest advantage, though indeed I must admit that it was his strategies that were important in the staging of the end of the war. But beyond that you are the reason that I still exist fully. I am just so thankful to have you as my wife."
"I remember too the first night we spent here together as husband and wife. It was one of the most memorable and important days of my life. It is ranked among the other important and meaningful days. Our anniversary, the birth of our children and the day you proposed; the look on Draco's face when he nearly got flattened by Prince." She said with love evident in her voice, but changing to something a bit more whimsical at the thought of Draco being carried away with a hoof print in his head, solving more than one of her problems in one fell swoop. Severus could not help the chuckle that escaped him at the memory.
"Ah, yes." He agreed. "It would have solved so many problems I will agree, but it would have created others as well. It is not taken lightly when an older name dies out in the magical world. It is good that he was not taken out before he was able to produce offspring. From what I hear he has a son in fact, to carry on the Malfoy name at least. The death of a name is usually seen as a losing a bit of our magical heritage and for those of a mostly magical linage it is seen as a great tragedy. I am eternally grateful that my name will now live on in our children, though for a long time I was prepared to let it die with me." He leaned in and kissed Hermione again.
"I for one am glad you chose differently." She said with a kiss. "Now, we should be talking of different and more important things, such as how long you will be standing around in those boxers of yours. I would very much like to see them join the rest of your things on the floor and you in the bed." She grinned giving the waist band a tug.
"Only if you join me." He growled, snapping his fingers and having both of their remaining scraps of clothing melt away into nothingness.
"I never thought you'd ask." She smirked and slid herself back onto the bed, beckoning him to follow. He quickly complied and soon they were entangled in the sheets and each other's arms panting as they came down from their first after sex high in nearly five months.
"That was too long in the making." Hermione said cuddling into his arms as he pulled the covers over their cooling bodies.
"I will agree." Severus murmured nuzzling the juncture of her neck and shoulder with his nose, drinking in the scent of his wife like an expensive perfume. "We need not wait as long again." He said marking his suggested timetable with a wiggle of his hips against hers.
"Well I do think we need a refresher course." She smirked drawing herself out of his arms long enough to unward and reach into a drawer of her nightstand. Severus understood and lit a candle on his nightstand so that they could see more easily. Both lying on their stomachs they began to flip through the Wizarding World's version of the Karma Sutra, beginning with the bookmarked pages.
Outside on the castle grounds the birds were beginning to herald the dawn and the sky tinged with pink, but down below in the dungeons the occupants were finally slumbering contentedly in each other's arms after a long and exhaustive night of getting reacquainted.
